Headshots Profiles, Essays, and Reflections

Thirty never-before-collected essays—many of them profiles—by the Pulitzer Prize–winning and bestselling author of The Looming Tower, Going Clear, and The Plague Year. These brilliant pieces reveal the broad spectrum of Wright’s cultural and political observations over the past thirty-five years. Spanning more than thirty-five years of Lawrence Wright’s reporting for The New Yorker, Texas Monthly, Rolling Stone, and other magazines, these pieces remind us what a brilliant observer Wright has been of institutions, of political maneuverings, and of people—dangerous, eccentric, or beloved. ORPHANS OF JONESTOWN (1993): A profile of Jim Jones’s three sons who, following the Jonestown massacre, were left alone in a society uncomprehending of their experience. A RAPIST’S HOMECOMING (1995): The ethical dilemma of a prison therapist, concerned that her patient—about to be released—could attack again. A LIVING DOLL (1988): A very personal column on how the author relates to his 5-year-old daughter through her toys. THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RICHARD BRAUTIGAN (1985): An incisive look at the 1960s and 1970s literary icon. SPACE CADET (1981): How a sanitary engineer combined her expertise and…